Happy Wednesday, everyone! I have spent my days off this week marathoning The Defenders on Netflix. I cannot tell you how much I've missed Jessica, Matt, and Luke (Not you Danny, sit down) and seeing them all team up together (Not you Danny, you were in the way) was wonderful and heartening to this nerd when she needed to believe in the Geek-dom again. So I will try to avoid spoilers as much as I can but really y'all should be catching up on the three important parts (You can skip Iron Fist. Just go in to this assuming that the only thing you like about Danny is Colleen Wing) of the Netflix/Marvel 'verse so that you can also enjoy this cool, snarky, dark series as well.
Here's what I love about these shows; they are paced like a comic book series. They're a little slow at the beginning, they drop little hints about the over arching plot in the first few episodes but they focus on character development and world building. And once the bigger plot kicks in it feels like the punches just keep coming. This seems to frustrate the hell out of a lot of the online TV reviewers but what it means is that if you can get in to them and adjust to the way they play out by the time the stakes are raised you understand and deeply care about everyone involved. Including, in some cases the villain. This is the case in The Defenders where we spend most of the first episode just catching up with where the four heroes are in their stories. The slow moving plot may frustrate you a little but this format is ideal for Netflix since you can power through several episodes without waiting a week to find out what happens next.
The fight scenes are typical of these shows, they are well choreographed and impactful. I didn't ever feel like I lost track of where everyone was in any of the fights which is huge since a lot of film directors have trouble pulling that off with only one or two protagonists. The Defenders regularly have five or six people fighting dozens of bad guys but they use long shots and really clever camera tricks to make sure you stay aware of where everyone is in the space. And the lighting... oh boy you know how we love a saturated neon (see the puddle of drool we've left on the floor of the theaters where we watched Atomic Blonde) and this show uses lighting along with each heroes specific color (Red for Daredevil, Purple/Blue for Jessica, Yellow for Luke, and Green for Ding-dong) to help tell the story of the scenes. It's stunning and there are several shots that I want to print out and have framed on our wall.
Now before you think this is nothing but a rave review, there were some weak points. The villainous organization (lead by the one and only Sigourney Weaver) has a motivation that is as vague as they could stand to make it. There's also a criminal use of the "We're not so different, you and I" speech that made me want to smack a writer with a rolled up news paper. Danny Rand is once again the weak spot, he's whiny and blatantly obnoxious but watching the three that I love point out when he's wrong, make fun of him repeatedly, and punch him several times was good for my soul.
Happy watching!
Little C
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